captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: the jobless rate rose to 9.2% in june as employers added the fewest jobs in nine months and government jobs disappeared. good evening. i'm jim lehrer. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the newshour tonight, we look at the grim numbers, and the stubbornly high jobs gap between black and white americans with economists diane swonk and cecilia conrad. >> lehrer: judy woodruff talks to miles o'brien in cape canaveral about today's liftoff of space shuttle "atlantis," the

final launch of the nasa shuttle program. >> brown: britain's "news of the world" scandal expands, and ray suarez explores its impact on both journalism and politics. >> lehrer: tom bearden has the latest on the exxon pipeline rupture that gushed thousands of gallons of crude oil into a montana river. >> it's been a week since the silver tip pipeline released oil into the yellowstone river. but it may be months before they know how much damage is actually been done. >> brown: and david brooks and ruth marcus analyze the week's news. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> well, the best companies are driven by new ideas. >> our future depends on new ideas. we spend billions on advanced technologies. >> it's all about investing in the future. >> we can find new energy-- more cleaner, safer and smarter. >> collaborating with the best in the field. >> chevron works with the

smartest people at leading universities and tech companies. >> and yet, it's really basic. >> it's paying off every day. the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: americans seeking work, and many hoping to hold on to their jobs, found little to cheer about in june. new numbers from the government today showed unemployment rising again, and job creation stagnating. >> today's job report confirms what most americans already

know-- we still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do to give people the security and opportunity that they deserve. >> brown: president obama delivered that summation in the white house rose garden. as he acknowledged, the june jobs picture was anything but rosy. the labor department reported unemployment hit 9.2%, up a tenth of a point and the third straight increase. and the economy had a net gain of just 18,000 jobs, the smallest total in nine months. the president argued there had been some progress, but perhaps even more than in the past, he conceded that job growth remains far too slow. >> we've added more than two million new private-sector jobs over the past 16 months, but our economy as a whole just isn't producing nearly enough jobs for everybody who's looking. >> brown: in fact, it takes at least 125,000 new jobs a month

just to match population growth. and republican house speaker john boehner insisted the blame for falling so short on that target lies squarely with the administration. >> i'm sure the american people are still asking the question, "where are the jobs?" the stimulus spending binge, excessive government regulations, and our overwhelming debt continue to hold back job creators around our country. >> brown: private sector hiring accounts for most job creation, but it was anemic at best last month. businesses added just 57,000 jobs. that was the smallest increase in more than a year, and much of it was offset by a loss of 39,000 government jobs. all told, 238,000 teachers and civil servants have lost their positions over the last eight months as state and local government revenues shrink. in addition, unemployment among minorities remains far higher than among whites.

it's all combining to put new pressure on the president and congress. both sides used today's jobs report to make the case that it's more urgent than ever to strike a deal on deficits and raise the federal debt ceiling. >> we're up against the debt limit. and while some think that, you know, we can go past august the 2nd, i frankly think it puts us in an awful lot of jeopardy and puts our economy in jeopardy, risking even more jobs. >> the sooner that the markets know that the debt limit ceiling will have been raised and that we have a serious plan to deal with our debt and deficit, the sooner that we give our businesses the certainty that they will need in order to make additional investments to grow and to hire. >> brown: the president also called again for congress to extend a payroll tax cut and ratify trade agreements. white house economist austan

goolsbee said those proposals and others would cut unemployment by a full point to 8.2% by next year's presidential election. for a closer look at today's numbers, we turn to cecilia conrad, an economist and dean of the faculty at pomona college in california; and diane swonk, chief economist for mesirow financial, a chicago-based firm. so, diane swonk, disappointment all around. what jumps out at you or surprises you most? >> well, i think the magnitude of the losses in the state and local government sector were continuing to see that as a headwind. it's a headwind that will abate over the next year but not soon enough to make a real difference in terms of the handout to the private sector which just hasn't been there. there is some good news, light at the end of the trouble and that is the fact that manufacturing is picking up and not all of that was reflected in today's data and we will see more of it in july, that some good news. we're also seeing a lot of

ipos out there and some of that will turn into job creation down the road. but down the road is just too long to wait for all those who have been so long unemployed. the number of long-term unemployed in particular is disturbing and the low rate of participation, the fact that people don't even have enough hope to throw their hat in the ring and actually participate in looking for a job is particularly disturbing right now. >> brown: well, cecilia conrad, how far dow take it? do you see these anemic numbers as suggests that whatever recovery was under way really has stalled? >> i think it has stalled. and there are several pieces of evidence for that. first of all, when we think about the numbers, there's evidence that we are seeing a falloff in temporary help and temporary help is one of the ways in which a business might sort of put its toe in the water in terms of expanding employment if it has some optimism about the future. the other things that's disturbing, we've talked a bit about the government

employment in that sector which is not entirely surprising given the fact that the re -- the stimulus package which funneled some funds to help keep afloat the school districts and to keep teachers employed is largely expired. so you see evidence of that in a group that historically has not suffered as much. and that is looking at black women. relative to black men they usually have done fairly well in the labor markets. but in the most recent segment compared to june a year ago their unemployment rate has actually gone up 2 percentage points. and that's a group that historically has had great a bite of employment in the government sector. >> brown: staying with you, cecilia, overall the african-american unemployment is roughly double that of whites, 16 something percent to 8 percent. now why does that stay so stubbornly high? >> that's a great question and a real puzzle, i think. if you look over time across

recession, across economic recoveries and periods of growth it has rather stubbornly been a 2 to 1 ratio of the black unemployment rate to the white unemployment rate. and if we think about the explanations traditionally given for why blacks have higher unemployment rates, we usually point to first of all differences in educational attainment, but despite the fact that there are still gaps in educational attainment, over time the educational attainment of blacks has improved, increased and the gap between blacks and whites have narrowed. we sometimes talk about the problem of spatial mismatch that african-americans remain more segregated than any other population in the country. they are frequently segregated in areas that do not have the jobs, that haven't seen job growth and they lack the kind of transportation infrastructure to get to where the jobs are. however over time the amount of that segregation has also

abated a bit. >> so and the third argument is just -- go ahead. >> brown: no, i'm sorry, go ahead. i was going to ask diane swonk to weigh in here because you know, the numbers are the numbers but they hit people in different ways. so what disturbing trends do you see fit into what cecilia conrad was just talking about? >> well, certainly dovetailing on that, in terms of the unemployment rate on single heads of household that are women, women, single mother, essentially, is running close to 13% which is part of that problem where the african-american women have now become more unemployed with the loss in government jobs. and the loss in educational employment, the loss of teachers you think of robbing the human capitol, the investment in human capitol going forward so you wonder about how much that is undermining us going forward. also disturbing is the fact that teenager unemployment is now close to 25%. that's an area where they are not getting critical

skills and it could exacerbate the gap between minorities and whites going forward because if they're not getting critical job skills early on in life they may not be as easy to reenter the labor force later in life so there are a lot of things that are really disturbing out there. and furthermore, in the wake of financial crisis one of the things that we do know from other financial crises particularly in europe is 20 years later early crease ease in the 1990s we never saw the lows in unemployment before them and the lingering affects were low rates of labor participation in long-term unemployment structurally high. and that's 20 years out. and they did everything right to fix their financial crises to structurally change their economies. and they weathered the recent financial crisis relatively well, had a v shape recover and still 20 years out have not goten to those prei crisis lows on unemployment that is particularly disturbing because we clearly don't have the kinds of consensus that they had during those crises to fix the problem today in the united states. >> brown: well, cecilia

conrad, apologize. i didn't mean to interrupt your last thought there. please finish but you know, as a way of telling us do you see any positives out there when you look either attic sectors of the population or the long-term economic picture. >> the retail trade sector yesterday there was news about an uptick in sales and that was one of the things that was rather disappointing in the numbers today because it didn't seem to play itself out in terms of job growth. but that is a sector that is sometimes the first job, the entry level job that diane referred to as being critically important for young people and for teenagers. >> the other sector that had a little bit of light was leisure and travel and that is an interesting one because it is surprising giving the economic circumstances that there is a growth and demand there, but that actually may be coming from foreign visitors as much as domestic visitors. so there is a little bit of

light but not a lot of light. >> all right, we will leave it there then. cecilia conrad, diane swonk, we'll look for a little bit of light. thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> lehrer: still to come on the newshour: the last shuttle launch; a widening british newspaper scandal; the oil spill on the yellowstone river; and the analysis of brooks and marcus. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: the dismal unemployment report pushed wall street lower today. the dow jones industrial average lost 62 points to close at 12,657. the nasdaq fell more than 12 points to close at 2,859. for the week, the dow gained half a percent; the nasdaq rose more than 1.5%. security forces in syria killed at least 13 people today amid mass demonstrations against president bashar assad. the largest crowds were in the city of hama, where activists said hundreds of thousands of people gathered. troops have massed there in recent days.

the u.s. and french ambassadors visited hama yesterday in a show of support for the protesters. the u.n. refugee agency warned today of a looming catastrophe in east africa amid the worst drought since the 1950s. millions of people across kenya, somalia, ethiopia, and south sudan are endangered, and many are being forced from their homes to search for help. we have a report from rohit kachroo of independent television news. he's in a village in eastern kenya. >> reporter: more than a thousand new refugees today. as somalia inched towards famine, the population of their new home edged towards that of a large city with its own morning rush. the city has now grown its own commuter village, formed in terrible conditions by desperate people. there are more arriving all the time. but many are stuck, unable to

make the final few miles to the main camp where there's a proper supply of food and water. the people who live here haven't been placed here; they've chosen to come. they've created their own community because the pressure in the main camp is so great. muslema is waiting for space there to free up. e tells me that, to get here, she walked for an entire month from northern somalia with her five children. but along the way, she took on another child because his mother died from hunger as they traveled south together. age 17, mohammed made the whole journey here on his own. but when he turned up without a parent, he, too, was taken in by a foster mother. families have been re-formed along the way. there are now only a few miles left of this journey, but when

they'll make it, they still don't know. >> sreenivasan: north sudan officially recognized the independence of south sudan today. the south became the world's newest country at midnight, local time, after a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war. south sudan will also face the challenge of entrenched poverty and sporadic border conflicts with the north. thousands of egyptians rallied in cairo today, demanding swifter reforms by the country's interim military rulers. protesters flocked to cairo's tahrir square, charging that there is no clear plan for a transition to democracy. they also want former regime members prosecuted for the killing of some 900 protesters earlier this year. one of the top college football powers in the u.s., ohio state, will surrender all 12 wins from last season, including its victory in the sugar bowl match-up. the school took that step today after disclosures that players sold memorabilia for cash and tattoos. the scandal already forced the

coach to resign. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jim. >> lehrer: the last flight of a nasa space shuttle brought thousands of spectators to cape canaveral today. judy woodruff has that story. >> three decades after the first shuttle launch spectators crowded in this morning to watch the atlantis lift off it was visible for less than a minute before disappearing into the clouds. with a crew of four astronauts aboard. after 12 days in orbit, the shuttle will return home on july 20th. newshour science correspondent miles o'brien who has watched more than 40 launches was there to cover it today. hello, miles, thank you for talking to us. >> judy, pleasure to be with you. >> woodruff: miles other than the fact that this is the final one what was important about today's mission? what should we know about this? >> this admission was important in a word about food. they brought up a lot of

food for the international space station. about a year's worth for the six member crew. atlantis was scheduled to be the potential rescue mission shuttle foreign defer, the penultimate shuttle mission. nasa said if we have taken this orbiter all the way to the point that it's ready to launch on demand and do a rescue mission if need be, why not just launch it, do one more mission and provide some additional material and stores for the international space station. that's why you have a four person crew. if for some reason atlantis can't come back, its heat shield is compromised, it's not safe to return, that four person crew will have to make its way down to earth on russian rockets and that could take upwards of a year. >> so miles given that this is the last mission, how are people talking it there at nasa in the space community? this has to be emotional for them? >> it is a tough thing. we're talking about 9,000 workers here directly linked to the space shuttle program. and of course in whole region is, there is a huge

ripple effect because this is obviously a big jobs generator, the place they call the space coast. but in particular today i spent some time talking with travis thompson who has spent 33 years here at the kennedy space center working on the shuttle program. he is the lead technician on the clogout crew, the guys who button them up, the astronauts, strap them in, shut the door and send them off to space. he and his team, it was a very emotional day for them. as they were finishing up their job they had put together a series of cards with messages talking about their appreciation for the program, their patted rotism and frankly -- patriotism and their sadness, and the final word was god bless america, held by travis thompson himself. this is travis thompson's last day on the job, after 100 shuttle missions, getting the crews strapped in and ready to go to space, tomorrow he has no job. where he is going to go to work. as he said, my job is putting human beings in

spacecraft to go to space. i don't see a lot of prospects for doing that somewhere else. so it is a poignant moment for him. >> so finally, miles, look back with us for just a moment. the legacy of the shuttle program after what, 135 missions. >> yeah, it's a mixed bag, judy. you're talking about a vehicle that is incredibly complicated and very expensive to fly fly. and frankly it's not the safest way to go to space as we saw with the two accident. there is no crew escape system that is viable during the ascent to space. and so the shuttle has learned, helped us learn in a sense the limits of our technological reach and capability. it's taught nasa a lesson about what happens when you try to cut costs in the design, the capitol costs up front, make compromises in that, which ultimately lead to higher operating costs. that is the downside of it. the upside is it successfully completed the international space station,

a $100 billion project. it's now classified as a national laboratory. and who knows, they might come up with some scientific breakthroughs up there. they are just beginning to scratch the surface on science there. so we don't know yet but the shuttle era made that space station possible. now it's time for nasa to think about moving on and exploring and reaching toward mars. >> brown: speaking of --. >> woodruff: speak of that we'll have you back next week when we talk about that. miles o'brien, thanks very much. >> you're welcome, judy. >> brown: the "news of the world" scandal in britain took new turns today. the rupert murdoch tabloid is shutting down on sunday amid allegations that reporters hacked into phones of murder victims and the families of slain soldiers. today, police in london arrested three people, including former editor andrew coulson, who once

worked for prime minister david cameron. and cameron himself faced new questions. awe instead of standing in his traditional place at the back of the home watching david cameron speak, he was heading for a south london station where he was arrested and questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to hack phones and on suspicion of bribing police officers. >> i made that decision to employ andy. he had resigned from the news of the world. he said at the time he didn't know what was happening on his watch. he should have known what was happening on his watch. he paid the price. he resigned. >> david cameron hired him to run his press operation barely five months after he resigned as editor of the

news of the world and the paper's royal correspondent was jailed for phone hacking. >> didn't you turn a blind eye as to what every single person knew, you couldn't be an editor or deputy editor of that newspaper without knowing what was going on. >> there had been what i thought at the time was what looked on the surface of it a proper investigation had taken place, where someone had been imprisoned. so it seemed to me because he had resigned for what had happened, which he said he didn't know about, it was reasonable to offer that person a second chance. >> david cameron said that the scandal dogging the murdoches and news international was a wake-up call to politicians who had turned a blind eye to newspaper malpractice because they wanted newspaper support. >> over the decades, on the watch of both labor leaders and conservative leaders, politicians and the press have spent time courting support, not confronting the problems. it is on my watch that the music has stopped. and i'm saying loud and clear that things have got to change. >> although the prime

minister said he wanted the current self-regulation by newspapers to be replaced by something independent, it wasn't clear just how much the relationship between political leaders and newspapers would change. for the first time david cameron distanced himself from his friend and neighbor rebecca brooks, former news of the world editor, now news international executive, still to many, defying gravity as she keeps her job. >> it has been reported that she offered her resignation over this. and in this situation, i would have taken it. >> reporter: by the end of the press conference andy corson was inside the police station in south london being question kd. at another police station police pulled in the former royal correspondent of the news of the world clive goodman who served a four month sentence for phone hacking. this time they were requesting him on suspicion of making illegal payments to police officers. they will said to be even more concerned about a massive delusion of data belonging to news international which they think they will never be able to retrieve. >> that report was by

correspondent itn correspondent garee gibon. ray suarez takes it from there. >> suarez: for more >> suarez: for more we turn to: richard adams, a correspondent for "the guardian," a british newspaper not part of rupert murdoch's news corp. "the guardian" has broken many of the stories uncovering the hacking scandal. and sarah ellison, who's covered this story for "vanity fair" magazine. she's a former "wall street journal" reporter, and author of the book, "war at 'the wall street journal'" about murdoch's purchase of the paper in 2007. richard saddams andy colson was already connected with the hacking scandal at the news of the world. how did he end up working for the prime minister and is david cameron become wounded by this now? >> well, we've heard cameron's explanation as to why he gave what he calls a second chance to andy colson. colson claimed that he knew nothing about what had been going on, that it was the responsibility of a single rogue reporter. and that he had resigned as a matter of honor.

in effect we now know, and are rapidly discovering more and more that colson was, in effect, heavily involved and that presumably many other senior figures inside the news of the world and possibly news international itself were also involved. >> suarez: but this is an unusually public and visible position for someone who was already tainted by scandal. even resigning out of honor and saying he had nothing to do with it, he was in charge. >> indeed it was extraordinary. and it was extraordinary and perhaps foolish, we can now say it was foolish for david cameron to have hired him. and david cameron i assume would have no idea that this would have got worse. otherwise he never would have given colson a job. >> so ellison earlier in the lifecycle of this story was there a time when it looked like the news of the world had successfully riden this out? that it was going to survive the hacking revelations,

when it was just about celebrities in the royal family? >> what's interesting about this story is that there were lots of times that it seems like thinged had sort of died down. and that the people at news international were going to come and get off. it did, in fact, take the reporting of the guardian and particularly nick davis at the guardian to keep digging in and looking for more and more evidence of this. i mean i think that the big turning point as it has been referred to here is that earlier this week instead of just hearing about celeb rids whose phones were hacked into, you were hearing about kidnapped girls who ended up dead whose phones were hacked into. and soldiers who had died whose phones were hacked into. that is all of a sudden something that really focuses people's minds and makes it seem like a much more dangerous and damning practise. >> suarez: and allegations, aren't there, involving

bribes paid to police of hundreds of thousands of pounds, that is hundreds of thousands of dollars? >> absolutely that is something "vanity fair" broke earlier this week is that news international has recently handed over e-mails to the police that show that andy colson was actively condoning payments to the police, not just for stories because that happens all the time in the u.k. that people get paid for stories. with you this was actually payments forconfidential information, and other things that are illinois legal to pay the police for. >> richard adams, in newspaper is known as a scourge of famous people but was there -- a chummy side to the relationship between the british national newspapers and political figures in the political parties? >> absolutely. i mean there's a much closer, a much more informal relationship between politicians in britain. and the media.

and especially in the case of the news of the world which of course is owned by rupert murdoch. murdoch makes no secret of the use of his numbs for his political affiliation. for many years from 19 the 7 onward he backed the labor party, especially under tony wlar and a couple of years ago he switched and he put the force of his paces behind the conservative party. but then british newspapers are more partisan than american newspapers. this is more common. but yes, it is quite -- murdoch is a powerful figure in british politics because of that. however, as a result of this, i think he is a damaged figure and he will probably be less powerful as a result. >> so he is trying to acquire the parts of a major satellite network, bskyb that he doesn't already own. that has to be reviewed by the british government. is that acquisition in trouble now? >> it certainly is.

shares in bskyb dropped i think more than 10% this week over concerns that that deal might be delayed and in fact may not happen. there was an open comment period where everyone was going to have a chance to comment on the upcoming deal and that was supposed to end on friday. given the revelations earlier this week, there were hundreds of thousands of comments at the culture secretary needed to sift through. and so they put that off, that decision off until september. that leaves a lot of time for something to happen in this deal that could eventually block it i did want to say one thing in response to the notion that there's a very casual relationship between politics and the media in britain. in the united states it's not quite the same thing. but dow have a very close relationship between certain politician and certain members of the media. and for something like you

can just look at fox news here where you have the bulk of or certainly several potential republican candidates who have already worked for rupert murdoch in the past and some of them have decided that they want to continue to work for him instead of running for president, if you look at someone like mike huckabee. i think that where you have those kinds can of dualing loyalties it does get to be sort of more complicated situation. so we're not immune to the sort of casualty -- casual relationships between these two spheres. >> how complicate kd it get certainly extends to rebecca brooks who we saw in the report who is a close associate of rupert murdoch, one of his senior executives and a close friend of prime minister david cameron. >> yes, i mean that is an example of the sort of informal linkages that are less common in the u.s. but a perfectly common. rupert murdoch, for example, is a regular visitor to number 10 downing street.

he visits the prime minister's residence at checkers which would be the camp david equivalent. and rebecca brooks is also in the same position, a regular visitor to both those places. in a way that you wouldn't see a u.s. president inviting similar media figures here. >> suarez: saranow that the justice is -- -- dust is starting to settle and the announcement is made and sun day's profits are all going to chart, how do you conclude that news corp. made this decision to bury 168-year-old newspaper, a very profitable property, one of the best read newspapers in the english language over something like this? >> well, the people i have been talking to at news corp. have said that this was something that they knew was potentially in the cards for months. they were going to maybe take this action. i think it's somewhat cynical.

because what it allows them to do is close the newspaper, try to draw a line under the scandal and have everyone move on. of course the executives who are really making the decisions about phone hacking have all left the news of the world at this point. so the people they are getting rid of are sort of lower level reporters and editors and they're preserving the executives who were, in fact n major positions of power when the worst hacking was taking place. at this think that what this does law them to do. there could be -- i think what it is as is they know something that we don't know. rebecca brooks today when she was addressing the newsroom made some cryptic reference to the fact that they would understand in a year why this closure needed to happen. and she made references to other shoes yet to drop. so some of those we just don't know what those are but i do think that there are elements of -- there are legal elements here that could be at play.

there is something in britain you can have corporate criminal liability so if you have the editor in chief andy colson breaking the law of an enfit that is the news of the world, maybe there's a way if are shutting it down you are sort of managing to core krall that legal liability and keep it away from news international although there are other things that they are facing now like the potential for the foreign corrupt practices act to come in. >> i will have to end is there. thanks for joining us. good to see you. >> thank you >> lehrer: now, newshour correspondent tom bearden reports from laurel, montana, on the big oil spill in the yellowstone river. >> reporter: for the last week, contractors have been working 12 hours a day laying down what look like oversized paper towels

on the standing water next to the yellowstone river. they're trying to soak up some of the estimated 42,000 gallons of crude oil that flowed out of an exxonmobil pipeline last friday night where it crossed under the river near town of laurel, about 17 miles west of billings. the sheets absorb oil, but not water. they're replaced when they've soaked up their fill of crude. the crews also are laboriously hand cleaning the grass and shrubs along the bank. exxonmobil pipeline company president gary preussing says the rupture of the pipeline known as the silvertip came as a surprise. preussing says the company had done a comprehensive inspection at the end of last year. >> we had been working with the city of laurel, who had actually asked us to look at this particular crossing, to stand engineering analysis, and work back and do additional engineering analysis, and work with the city of laurel to make sure that we were comfortable operating this line. we have between five... or had between five and eight feet of cover between the pipeline and the bottom of the river.

and again, at the time of... as the river was rising, as we did this analysis, we felt like we had a very safe condition. >> reporter: the u.s. department of transportation, which oversees pipeline operations, cited the company for seven violations last year. a department spokesperson says the company had responded and the case had been closed. but now, the runoff pouring down from the rapid melting of the record snow pack in the mountains of yellowstone park more than a hundred miles to the west may have contributed to the accident by uncovering the pipeline. it might surprise people to think that between five and eight feet of the river bed was eroded by this spring runoff. >> at this point in time, we do not know what the cause of this incident was. i know there has been some speculation that that potentially was the cause, but we have an investigating team in place to try to determine exactly what happened. we obviously missed something. something occurred that we did not anticipate. that will be a learning for the

future, and we hope that we'll be in a position that this will never happen again. >> reporter: pipelines crossing over and under rivers are not at all uncommon. the silvertip alone has five crossings. in all, pipelines operated by various companies cross montana rivers in 88 places, and the state has announced plans to review all of them. exxonmobil operates 8,000 miles of pipelines in montana alone. there are some 2.5 million miles of lines that crisscross the entire country. new technology allows and new regulations require that new pipelines be drilled 25 feet or more beneath riverbeds, and preussing says that is how the crossing at laurel is likely to be rebuilt. in the meantime, mitt bradshaw and a lot of other ranchers and farmers are having to cope with this spill. bradshaw trains horses on a ranch about 35 miles downstream. oil-laced floodwaters have invaded his corrals and forced him to move his livestock. >> well, the only thing is you

have to be careful that you know any livestock probably isn't going to be the best thing in the world for them to drink. >> reporter: do you have other water for them to drink? >> yes, we... we have some well water, which we're, you know, putting the animals in corrals so we can give them good well water. >> reporter: one of the biggest problems facing the people trying to deal with this oil spill is the yellowstone river itself. as you can see, there's an enormous quantity of water rushing down the channel. and that keeps people from getting to the places where they think the oil is. >> we really don't know what to expect. we really haven't had oil contamination of this degree, or on habitat that is this sensitive and this useable that i can think of in this area. >> reporter: bob gibson has been wading around in flooded wheat fields looking for oil. he says he's found what looks like a bathtub ring on the crops. gibson is with the montana

department of fish, wildlife and parks. a lot of ranchers who raise crops and cattle feed are wondering if this year's crop will be so contaminated, they won't be able to harvest it. >> because of the high flow of the river, we're not able to access probably 99% of the riverbank. all of our islands are inundated, a lot of the shores are inundated. there's swamps backed up, away from the water a lot, so we're not able to access the shores, the islands. there's actually enough debris and high enough water and dangerous enough water in the yellowstone now that we're unwilling to put a jet boat on it to get to some of those areas. >> reporter: gibson and others say it may take three weeks before the river begins to go down. there's no doubt that many people here are worried. about 200 residents showed up for a town hall meeting wednesday night to tell federal, state, and local officials about their concerns. >> we've been calling that 1-800 number about three times a day and we've had no response. >> reporter: several spoke of

persistent strong petroleum odors that made them feel sick. >> all i want to know is this gonna be like agent orange in vietnam? in five years, will my lungs be going haywire? i want to know that right now. >> reporter: the environmental protection agency's regional administrator, jim martin, tried to reassure them. >> we're conducting air and water samples, both in the river and from public drinking systems and private wells. we're going to turn those results around as rapidly as the laboratories will allow us, and we'll get the results back to the public. but so far, were seeing no significant evidence that... no real evidence that it's unsafe to drink the water from drinking water systems. >> reporter: state senator kendall van dyk is worried about wildlife and the people who come here to see it. he also represents trout unlimited, a national sportsmen's organization that tries to protect wildlife habitat. van dyk says this part of the river is not a blue ribbon trout fishery like yellowstone park.

but he says the warm water species that thrive here also draw tourists. he's worried that, after all the bad publicity, they'll stay home. >> people come here from all over the world, and this time of year, this is tourist season in montana. you know, we do a lot of bragging about montana, especially this time of year with the fly fishing, and it's the reason people come here is to come experience this. and these aren't the kind of headlines people want in montana. this isn't the way we like to talk about our state. >> reporter: most of the people we talked to were pretty satisfied with the cleanup effort. but not the governor. governor brian schweitzer withdrew from the e.p.a.-led joint command center, saying exxonmobil was actually in charge and was withholding information from the press and state officials. in response, an e.p.a. spokesman reiterated that his agency was leading the effort, not the oil company. tom reiter is also unhappy. he says he lost a lot of boat repair business because the authorities closed a road and his customers couldn't get to his shop. that's the same road where the major cleanup operation is underway.

it runs along the south side of the river channel, near where the spill started. deputies say it was closed to protect the cleanup workers. but the closure forced reiter and others to take long detours. >> it shouldn't happen in the first place. neighbors go through it. unless there's water or oil going across that road, there's no reason ot close it. it seemed to us, it didn't seem like they wanted the public to get close to the river. and that's the most accessible part of the river by the public. >> reporter: reiter loudly protested, so loudly at a roadblock that he later said he was surprised he wasn't arrested. but apparently, local authorities got the message. while we were interviewing reiter, he got a phone call from two county supervisors and the sheriff, who said they would fix the problem. bill kennedy is one of those commissioners. he says local and state government will make sure this entire problem will be fixed. >> we want it put back the way it was.

and with all of that, we've got assurances from exxon that they'll work to get this back, and to get it back to where it was. if it takes anywhere from six weeks to a year to a year and a half, whatever it takes, we want to make sure that all of this area and the landowners that are affected are... are happy with the results. >> reporter: but some environmentalists say this accident is exhibit "a" to bolster their opposition to a much larger planned pipeline to run from canada's vast oil fields to houston. that line would also cross the yellowstone and other rivers. but despite the spill, many people, including the governor, remain strongly in favor of transporting oil to state's refineries to feed the nations appetite for fuel. >> lehrer: and finally tonight, the analysis of brooks and marcus-- "new york times" columnist david brooks, "washington post" columnist ruth

marcus. mark shields is away. mark shields is away tonight. david, the news of the world thing in britain, sarah ellison said a few moments ago, told ray that we're not immune from this. we the united states and the american press is not immune from this kind of stuff either. what do you make, what do you think about that? >> well there are some ways the british press culture is very different than ours t is more incestuous than ours they all shower together and edin so they know each other since they were eight years old. there is also a bad boy ethos in some of the tabloids, we break the rules, we get story, we snoop, we're rats. and we don't quite have that tabloid culture but there are some dangers here which we should be aware of. first, prying. we pry. my first day on the job as a police reporter in chicago i'm 22 years old, whatever. a kid commits suicide and i have to call all the neighbors and figure out why. so that is snooping. a guy diesing midlevel city

official dies, i have to get a quote out of is wife that is snooping, that is what we do. but you hope you build barriers to get information without violating human decency. and the second thing which they refer to is the incestuousness. we do try to get close to people who are powerful who we write about to get information. and the question is are you then willing to make them angry. is the loyalty to the paper or your friendship with them. and that say perpetual problem for all of us. so i do think we don't have the same culture that they have in britain but we do have dangers. >> lehrer: do you agree, ruth? >> not entirely. because i think it's a very different situation here than it is there. and i hate to sound awfully, you know, overly american chest thumping. but look, you cannot overestimate the degree to which rupert murdoch and his properties have an impact in the united kingdom that is just so different from even his impact despite the influence of fox news and

the 8,000 republican presidential candidates on their payroll here. he is so influential there. they own four out of 21 major newspapers. they have a major interest and now want to gobble up the rest of the biggest private television networks. it is critical for politicians in great britain to be on the good side of rupert murdoch and that creates a whole set of dynamics that i don't think we have here. and simultaneously, look, there is cozy -- cozying up there is good cozying up f you don't have a relationship of trust and understanding with the people that you cover, you're not going to get accurate information from them. that's a good thing but this goes way further. and also there is a difference between -- we've all had to do earlier in our careers, calling up the grieving parent and saying how do you feel. >> lehrer: hardest thing i have ever had this do in my life. and hacking into a cell phone, one is just repulsive

and unethical. >> lehrer: but david's point is it's not as -- there's not as big a gap there as you might think. >> i would say there are doorways. when you start as a journalist you have to walk through some doorways. you have to walk up to strarningers and ask them intimate questions. and people aren't used to that then several more doorways before you get to hack. so you have to be aware. >> lehrer: you are say our doorways with -- >> it's a different culture. it is hard to imagine even with tmz and all the other places that paparazzi, it is hard to imagine a similar, a scandal of similar proportions here in the united states or at least that's my american story and i'm sticking to it. >> and we'll hum a song and go on to what you make of today's job numbers. >> pretty terrible, obviously. i guess to me one of the things you sake away is that we constantly have goten this wrong. and i say we, it's sort of the economic consensus.

there has been a view first the administration saying that unemployment would be down at 7 or 8, then the summer of recovery and then real job growth and a lot of economists saying even up until yesterday evening, that the job creation was going to be better. and it is just not there. and so one of the lessons i take away is we don't know much about the economy and the second lesson i take away --. >> lehrer: nobody knows very much. >> and i think most economists would concede that. and the secretary thing i take away is that we're just not really good, the government is not really good at manipulating quarter-to-quarter growth. the government can create the terms for long-range growth with human capitol policies and good structures and good tax. but boosting the economy from quarter-to-quarter, once a month, we just, especially with fiscal policy we don't have that within our power. >> ruth, one of the things the president said today was that maybe one of the reasons for the fact that private business has not been hiring is that they are

all worried about the debt limit. do you buy that? >> no, but i -- any argument that can get to an agreement on the debt limit i give some tolerance to. one of the things that's fascinating about the job numbers is that how you react to them and how you understand them within the context of the debt limit depends on what your preexisting concept -- conceptions are, so that republicans saw the terrible job numbers and, which are terrible, and said well this just shows that the last thing on earth that we can do is raise taxes and squelch the prospect of job creation and democrats saw it and said this shows that we need to make sure that whatever we do in the short term it doesn't, we can't cut spending and therefore cut growth and we need to think about further stimulative things. so each side is going to take these numbers and use it to just make the same arguments they would have made absent those numbers.

>> i wish somebody would measure the magnitude of these effects. so cutting taxes it probably does hurt growth a little. does it hurt it a lot. i kind of doubt it. cutting spending it probably hurts growth a little, but a lot. >> raising taxes. >> yeah. >> but you cut spending, government spending. people lose their jobs and that's what those people were counted in today's unemployment numbers. >> sure you saw the biggest category-of-loss was government and state and local governments, duh. the thing that i find so frustrating about the use of these jobs -- numbers and context of the debt ceiling debate is that people are not talking about massive tax increases now. we're talking about, and so yes there is a magnitude and we can disagree about how great it is, about the impact of raising taxes. nobody is talking about huge tax increases now. we're talking about the prospect of raising tax

revenue over ten years. and lord knows if we're not out of this terrible economy in ten years, we're, you know, we would be sitting here in ashes. >> what is your reading, what is your -- what is your level of optimism about whether or not there's going to be a deal before august 2 nd. >> let's put it this way. it's higher than it has been in about five years. and so i think in boehner and obama were in the room, they would have a deal already. and i think they've made --. >> lehrer: you really believe the two of them are enough in sync. >> right, they would have a deal. and i think they made significant progress in private. now there are a couple of things holding them back which should make us a little more pessimistic. one, can they get republicans to signn to this deal. >> lehrer: you're talking about the tea party republicans or all republicans. >> the question is how big a chunk the tea party s or

what we might call the michel bachman resqexists that will vote against the debt raising seal nothing matter what, about tax increase those matter what. how big are the rejectionists on the left and how many tricks are they trying to play off against each other, obama and boehner. there are trickings going on. nonetheless, for those of us who have been waiting for the leaders of the two parties to have serious negotiations about big things, that is happening now. and overall i think it's excellent. >> lehrer: do you agree with that? >> i'm not quite clear as overly optimistic, exuberantly optimistic. when ask you if there is going to be a deal i hate to sound clintonian but it depends on what the meaning of deal is the white house has set out this sort of gold i locks trifecta of deal possibilities there is the tiny deal, the medium size, $2 trillion deal. >> because 2 trillion, 3 trillion, 4 trillion. >> or something like that. >> and there is the big deal,

the big deal is like actually revved up and excited, is there a better prospect for that than there has been for a very long time but i would still put the prospects of that at somewhere south of 50%. >> why are the prospects for the biggest deal better than for the medium deal or little deal. what's happening? >> i'm not sure they're better but the argument for the bigger deal and the reason we might see a bigger deal is bigger isn't just better in this circumstance. it actually might be easier because you can afraid off more different parts and more different constituencies. and the republicans, boehner in order to get his republicans needs some social security cuts. >> that then democrats and the democrats need the industrial dollars in tax revenue and so you maybe you can play around to make it look like less than a industrial and then you whisper to your friends that it is actually a trillion. it is going to be, what's going on behind the scenes is absolutely fascinating.

the oddest couple around is the president and the speaker. they are completely in sync in wanting to get this done. whether -- everybody else, not some of. >> everybody else is miserable. >> how do you explain that. >> what's happened to make obama and boehner beyond just being golf partners. >> two things, one, i think they both seriously think the country has a problem, a deficit problem. >> they agree that the debt limit too is a problem. >> right. and third, incumbents have mutual incentives. the party of the incumbents wants to get re-elected. if obama cuts a deal he's very likely to get re-elected. if boehner changes the trajectory of spending he request say we came to washington, we did it. and so secretly what's going on here is that obama is really sticking the knife in nancy pelosi making it unlikely that she will get the speakership and bayne ferr he cuts a deal is hurting mitt romney or whofer the republican nominee some. so the party of the

incumbents are sticking together and hurting the party of the outs. >> wow!. >> do we have time. >> where do you agree. >> i mostly agree. >> lehrer: that is as far as we can go. sorry, ruth, good to see you again. >> good to see you. >> brown: again, the major developments of the day: the jobless rate rose to 9.2% in june as employers added the fewest jobs in nine months and more government jobs disappeared. and the shuttle "atlantis" blasted off on the final mission of the shuttle program. and to hari sreenivasan for what's on the newshour online. hari. >> sreenivasan: paul solman weighs in on today's job numbers. that's on our "making sense" page. and on "art beat," find a preview of jeff's interview with historian david mccullough on his book "the greater journey: americans in paris." all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. jeff. >> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. on monday, we'll look at what lies ahead for the u.s. space program. i'm jeffrey brown. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. "washington week" can be seen later this evening on most pbs

stations. we'll see you online, and again here monday evening. have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: chevron. we may have more in common than you think. and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org